Contested Legacies. Central and Eastern European and Southern European competing narratives on authoritarian lieux de memoire

The project will be implemented by an international team of researchers representing various scientific disciplines. Therefore, it will be necessary to combine research methods used in both the humanities and the social sciences. In addition to the historical-comparative method, based on an in-depth study of the scientific literature on the issues of dictatorship memorials in the selected countries of Southern and Central and Eastern Europe, the policy of memory, and political cultures, we intend to use the method of critical discourse analysis in the project. 

The project will consist of three parts: In the first part, we intend to examine the problem of the coexistence of different, sometimes mutually exclusive, narratives about "memorial sites" in countries that have had to deal with the experience of authoritarian regimes in their history. This problem is related to historical policy models and the extremely important issue of "working through the past". We intend to compare the historical policy of the above-mentioned countries, implemented by ruling right-wing and left-wing parties and movements through the conceptual lens of - among others - an analysis of normative regulations and documents. Here, we will examine the question of what the relationship between "working through the past" and the policy of historical revisionism is about, and whether the need to "work through memory" may affect the legitimacy of extreme-right groups on the political scene? In the second part of the project, we intend to examine how various parties and political groups, especially the extreme right-wing ones, use contested heritage sites in political narrative construction and what is the impact of this narrative on shaping public opinion. Are we dealing with the negotiation of the meaning of memorial sites by various entities/social groups and claiming the right to use these sites? Who creates narratives about memorial sites and for what purpose? In addition to the critical discourse analysis, based on the analysis of press articles and party programmes, we also intend to use the method of ethnography, that is, a critical analysis of the content of selected blogs, fan-pages of NGO websites, etc., and conduct in-depth interviews with opinion leaders. In the last part of the project, we will approach the issue of contested heritage as seen from the perspective of educational systems. By analysing the content of textbooks, we will try to examine how people learn about places of troubled heritage in the above-mentioned countries. Are these topics covered in school textbooks and, if so, how?